Gardening continued...

So Al has been busy preparing the garden for planting. He's been tilling and spreading it with black dirt. Just a few days ago I caught him plowing it under again with the tractor, adding grass for mulch and tilling it again. I must admit I don't have much of a green thumb but, if I were a plant, I'd suppose the ground looks nice.

We have sandy soil and plenty of rock so it seems to take a lot of conditioning. Al had modified an old tiller of his dad's with a new larger engine and is having luck with that. However, it's really large and heavy for me to use, I can't even pull start it.

So, wanting my help in such a large garden, we decided to order a Mantis tiller. We got the 2-cycle with kickstand and fired it up a couple times. The thing has plenty of power. It can really did deep and it's light enough that I can handle it (I'm very petite).

Actually, thanks to the arrival of the Mantis, I dug up a new flower bed in front of the house to try my hand with a few new flowers. The fact that it's a fast and light tiller means I am able to weed the beds and help Al keep up in our expanded garden. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Off to a good start so far.

The plants were started from seed we ordered at Farmers Seed and Nursery. Our last shipment of potatoes and flower bulbs is on the way and we're pleased that we got just about everything we needed for 1/2 the price we'd have to pay at our local greenhouses. *Note about farmers seed- the seeds were ok, but the potatoes we ordered were ROTTEN. Not happy!